Quote:
Originally Posted by Sprintey
Aware of this and completely agree. It's a fascinating case study that Australia, the one nation to do the free trade thing and lower all support/protection to very little/nil, ends up being the only G20 country without a car industry. All others protect in various forms.
The transition to electric forced by legislation is more of a 'stick' than the 'carrot' of subsidies that have existed to this point. The 'stick' will get pushback like we see in France. The subsidies have worked, slowly just as subsidies in various forms keep all the big national auto producers going. Joe Public like me will be a convert too: hey, I can power a car at 1/3 of the cost! Hey, with solar and batteries, it will eventually be free of fuel cost! That realisation will grow.
The risk in bankrupting from the forced legislation is if the boards of automakers have misjudged in reaction to the policy, and pour enormous capital into products that won't be profitable or sell in any volume. Combined with the notion that autonomous vehicles reducing the size of the vehicle fleet by 75%, personal ownership of cars drastically reducing - the manufacturers may wish to reduce their footprint if they wish to stay in business (happening).
Maybe govcos see the need to change as being more severe than the public do, and maybe the reason is this domino-like depletion of each type of hydrocarbon fuel rather than what makes the news headlines?
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The biggest car markets in the world are offering subsidies to EVś, China, Europe and America for their own self interest.